Magic Dance
by Dark Rabbit
Summary: Post Avengers: As punishment for Loki's crimes, Odin seals his magic and banishes him to Midgard. There, he renews an old acquaintanceship. He makes alliance with someone who's talent for creative plotting and devious revenge is as good as his. There are ...problems This story contains Dr. Doom and Loki as a couple (sort of), and Baby Tony.
1. The Latverian Embassy, March 10th

"You remind me of the babe  
What babe? babe with the power  
What power? power of voodoo  
Who do? you do  
Do what? remind me of the babe ..."  
– David Bowie

**_The Avengers_****, and ****_Thor_****, and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

The accident is Loki's fault. He is the one who chose to ally himself, not with Doom, who offered, but with some sort of extra-dimensional being named Thanos. Doom knows very little of this Thanos. He is a coward though, that much is obvious. Instead of invading Earth himself, he sent Loki to do it, at the head of an army of stupid, easily killed creatures called Chitauri. Loki failed, of course. He failed drastically and dramatically, and afterward, he was hauled back to Asgard in chains, by his stupid clot of a brother. The next Doom saw of him, his magical powers were gone. He wore bracelets of his father's making that sealed them away. Understandable of course, when he immediately set to work to remove them. Doom provided him with the workspace, the tools, the pentagrams and and arcane books of demonology. Some fools might say that he shares part responsibility for the burst of power, half-sealed, that has just caused such destruction. They would be wrong. The accident is Loki's fault. If he had allied with Doom in the first place, none of this would have happened.

The Latverian Embassy in New York is an architectural masterpiece of a building, as aesthetically pleasing as it is secure. The United Nations could take a lesson. Their so-important headquarters is as boring as a branch office in Biloxi, and dangerously vulnerable to attack by death ray, or doomsday device. Loki finds Doom there when he returns to Earth after his failed invasion (Doom is presenting a paper at the UN on the anti-recessionary effects of one-man government). He enters. – No explosion, or rip in the space-time continuum as the last time, but merely a press on the security buzzer at the front door. Doom brings up the feed and when he sees who it is, he opens the door.

"Odin is worthless." Thinner than he was before, worn fine by ill-treatment at someone's hand, that will no doubt have to be avenged, Loki still holds himself with the same tension. His voice crackles with the same anger, and still at the same sources. "Despite all I have done, still he cleaves to the Thunderer, as if naught will dissuade him. Protection for Midgard, faugh! The heir's place is in Asgard. Were it anyone else, All-Father would insist on it. But this is Thor. Of course, he may go where he will."

Thor, the oafish blond who's sudden elevation to Kingship precipitated Loki's initial rebellion. Doom has followed this story. Beings of such power as the Asgardians deserve his attention. "I thought your brother went back to Asgard."

Confirming nod from Loki. "He remained there long enough to witness my sentencing, and then he requested a boon: 'Father, oh Father, pray...'" – The twist of his face, the nasty tone to his voice: Rage seethes, always just below the surface. It is this, which makes Loki so easy to manipulate. – "'Allow me to return and help my dear friends repair the damage caused by the Chitauri!'"

And so Thor is back on Earth. How useful. As long as he is here, expect no diminution in his brother's rage. Doom smiles. "Won't you take a seat, Loki." He presses a button, summons a Doom-bot to bring food and drink. "This sentencing you speak of. Of what does it consist?"

It consists of banishment, to end when Loki repents. "Repents!" The fuming is palpable. "And for what, pray? I have done naught save what the Thunderer has done, many times, and earned naught but praise."

This is not true. Loki has done many things that his brother has not done, that he could not have done, because he lacks the imagination. Some of them have manipulated people, or caused them harm, but they have been grand schemes, of vision and creativity. And after all, one cannot make an omlet without breaking a few eggs.

The Doom-bot arrives. Latverian Tokay and Gateaux a la Doom. Doom serves his guest before himself. "I offered you an alliance once before."

A finicky sniff from the disgraced demigod. "I have not sunk so low as to ally with a mortal."

"No?" Doom looks at him. Their entire history hangs between them: Their first meeting and Loki's rejection then, his eventual alliance with Thanos, and the horrible downfall that resulted. Loki holds Doom's gaze for a long moment, his expression cold. Then he looks away.

It is thus that Doom won his alliance with the God of Chaos. His home, his belongings – And his genius intelligence and extensive knowledge-base. – are at Loki's disposal, to help him while he frees the power Odin has sealed. In return, Doom will ask one thing, a boon if you will, when the goal is accomplished. Doom imagines he will ask for the destruction of the Fantastic Four. With them out of the way, his other goals will be but child's play to accomplish.

And thus we return full-circle to the beginning of the story. Thus the workspace, the tools, the virgin's blood and vials of plutonium necessary for in-depth experimentation. Let us begin here, on a lovely morning in early spring: Loki is in Doom's laboratory at the Embassy. Doom, for his part, is in the reception room, in conversation with Tony Stark, of Stark Enterprises.

"A lawsuit, really?" Amusingly, Stark has shown up in full Iron Man regalia, to serve notice of his suit. Do please say that he is _frightened_ of what might happen. "And for copyright infringement?"

A shrug of red-and-gold shoulders. "They say the Feds finally got Capone for tax evasion."

Al Capone? A low-level American gangster? Doom is insulted by the comparison.

"The last time you attacked Stark Enterprises, you left one of your bots behind. Careless, Doom. You shouldn't do that when all their best tech is stuff you _stole_."

Doom steals nothing. "I improved on some of your designs."

"You stole them." Stark folds shiny metal arms. Really, the flexibility of his suit is quite admirable. "I've got the Stark blueprints that'll prove it, and then it will be your butt in a Federal prison, diplomatic immunity or no diplomatic immunity."

Such rudeness is inexcusable, even from a fellow scientist like Stark. Necessary now to squash the intruder. Doom rises. He folds his own arms, his armor equally flexible, if not more so, than Stark's. "You will leave now, Mr. Stark. You will leave or you will be..."

_...Thrown out..._ The words are on his lips, – The Doom-bots are already entering to carry out his wishes. – but they do not fall. No affirmative action is taken at all, by either of them, and yet there is a rending, wrenching sound, as of metal tearing. Stark's so-precious, unreplicable Iron Man suit falls to the ground in shards, and where the man himself was... Where Doom should see Tony Stark, genius billionaire, philanthropist and erstwhile arms manufacturer, he instead sees... Instead there is...

...There is a _baby_ there instead.


	2. Later the Same Day

...An infant. A child. A waddling, drooling milk-consumer. Fuzzy curls of brown hair only sparsely cover the infantilized Stark's oversized head. His nose is a button. He looks down with round, blue eyes, at the pudgy fingers of his little pink hands, and then he looks up at Doom.

"What the fuck did you do to me?"

Doom did nothing. Not to say it isn't a useful trick, to be able to infantilize an enemy like this. Not to say Doom wouldn't like to be able to do it. Just off the top of his head, he can think of many practical applications. For instance, what would Grimm look like infantilized? Would he remain in rock-form, or revert to his old (equally ugly) human body? And as for Richards... Well he would be a literal _bouncing_ baby boy, wouldn't he? ...But Stark now: Even if Doom knew how to effect this transformation, what would have been the point? He's already reverse-engineered all the best the technology from this suit.

"I can assure you, Mr. Stark..." As he speaks, Doom rises. He makes a careful circle around his newly-infantilized visitor and studies him from all angles. He _is_ a baby, in all significant respects. His form is tiny, his proportions are childlike, and he sits in the shattered remnants of his Iron Man suit, with his undershorts in a pool of fabric around his now much-smaller hindquarters. "This transformation, amusing though it is, is not of my doing."

"I really have no idea who could be responsible," Doom says, which is the first lie he has uttered since Stark got here. "Who hates you enough to do such a thing?"

Baby-eyebrows are tiny fluffs of barely-visible hair, baby-mouths are made only for coos and gurgles, but Stark still manages a credible frown, drawing together what little eyebrow he's got, and turning down the lips of his nearly-toothless mouth. "You'll pay for this."

Normally, that's Doom's line. How hilarious this is, when you think about it.

"Pick me up." Stark raises chubby arms, spreads tiny-fingered hands like starfish.

Pick him _up_? He is supposed to _touch_ this mite of humanity? Just the thought makes him shudder. "None touches Doom. I will get a Doom-bot..."

"Pick me up or I'll cry." Stark's mouth opens. It widens into a circle that seems to cover half his face, and noise pours out. Piercing noise. Horrible noise. It goes on and on, like the sound of a thousand car-horns blatting, at a single intersection outside the Baxter Building at rush hour, like wild beasts caged for some particularly ill-conceived vivisection, or the air raid sirens, right before Doom's bombs start dropping. Stark screams, and he howls. He yells with the force of lungs that must surely be the size they used to be, for how could his newly tiny form contain so much breathing-power? Doom would put his fingers in his ears, only with the mask on, he cannot. He glances at the door. Should he leave the room? But before he can make thought a reality, the door opens, and Loki comes in.

The green-eyed demigod has a bloodied cord wrapped around his right wrist, and chars on both hands. He smells strongly of burning reactor cores. He sees what is on the floor, and he stops. From a safe distance of three feet away, he eyes the infant Stark. "What is _that_?"

"It is _Tony Stark_." Doom has to raise his voice to be heard over the noise of crying. "I believe you did this to him, Loki."

Flat denial: "I did not." Loki puts out a very careful finger and touches the infant Stark's belly. At once the crying stops. Doom hears instead, gurgles if infant-laughter.

"How did you accomplish that?"

Loki bends and as he does so, incredibly, Stark puts up infant-arms toward him. "I have borne children, remember? A foal, a human: It is still the same principle." His hands go under Stark's tiny body, and he draws back. "He is _wet_."

"You bet I'm wet," Stark growls. "I'm a baby. Pissing themselves is pretty much all babies do. I'm gonna crap myself too in a minute, if one of you doesn't get it together and pick me up _now._"

"We need something to cover him." There are devices made for this purpose, are there not? Articles that serve as containment shields for infant waste? "You must get a diaper, Loki."

Loki draws himself up. "I will not. I have no knowledge of such." He bends, again tickling Stark's belly and, again, Doom hears the welcome sounds of infant pleasure. "Why don't we just kill him?"

It would be convenient...

Stark glares. He can actually manage quite a credible glare, considering the infant features he has to work with. "You fuckin' better not."

Well obviously, what is he going to say? You can't expect a man to sit there and _ask_ to be killed. ...Or a baby-man. Doom snerks.

By this time, a Doom-bot has returned with a roll of paper towels. These, it wraps all over the most exposed, and wettest portions of Stark's anatomy. Doom goes over and studies him.

"I think we should heal him." –

"Fuckin' yeah!" –

"How often does one get an opportunity like this? By finding and correcting the malfunction that caused this, one may also learn how to cause similar transformations intentionally."

Loki has picked Stark up, now that he is dry. He is actually _cuddling_ him, pressing his face against the soft skin of his bare shoulder, and tickling his round baby-belly. He snorts. "Had I my powers, I could do things compared to which this is as nothing."

Had he his powers... Yes, and if they had some bacon, they could make bacon and eggs ...If they had any eggs. Doom looks at Loki. "Your powers are sealed until you show repentance."

...Repentance... What did he just say? He studies Stark, his new little test-subject, who must be treated well, so that he will yield plenty of good information. Under his mask, Doom smiles.

"Caring for a child is a _humane_ act, Loki. And this child is a fallen enemy, is he not? To care for him, would be an act of true repentance."

"Odin's not going to believe it," Stark says. He pushes Doom's mailed finger away from where he was about to stroke the chubby dimples of his test-subject's cute little face. "Your dad's psychic, isn't he Loki? He can tell what you're really thinking."

_Can_ he? Doom brings his finger close again. He pushes past Tony's tiny ones and tickles the little industrialist on the belly. In spite of himself, Stark giggles. "What is it you are called on Asgard, Loki? Liesmith? Trickster?"

"And Silvertongue as well. It is not merely mortals who have been taken in by my deceptions." Loki cuddles Stark. "We must feed our new charge, Victor. Food suitable for an infant must be obtained." –

"Whiskey? Shwarma?" –

"_Milk_." Loki kisses Stark on the nose. "Milk for our Baby... – What is the mortal's name again?"

"Stark."

"It's _Tony_," says the one in the diapers.

"...Milk, for our Baby Tony. ...Or whate'er substitute you mortals use, when a breast is not available."


	3. The Next Day, in Baby Tony's Nursery

The accident is Odin's fault, for his was the lie that precipitated it. That lie: How many times has Loki been told to overlook it? That as he was but a babe at the time, and incapable of complexity, it was necessary to withhold the truth? Mayhap. But how then to explain the further lies that came after? How to justify Fa... – How to justify _All-Father_'s words, spake to the child-Loki's very face: "Both my sons were born to be Kings."

Ah, the subtlety of the deception! Men may call Loki "Trickster", but he learned, surely, from a master. For there is a grain of truth to the words, is there not? A throne was Loki's indeed, as heritage from his father Laufey. No lie then, but a half-truth, to tell this, that there was a throne, and withhold the name of the realm wherein it stood. But for what did he do it? Wherefore, did he wish to keep a Frost Giant in Asgard? He must have known what would result, the eventual disclosure, the bitterness that would follow. And, after that, the rebellion.

Odin reaps what he has sown. His the blame for all that followed, for the Frost Giant incursion into fair Hlidskialf, and the destruction of the Bifrost. For Loki's attack on Thor's so-precious Midgard, for his arrest and punishment, and for this new accident, caused by the unfamiliarity of Victor's equipment.

Granted, there are compensations. Stark is more pleasing in this form than he was in the other, and his sarcasm is more easily stifled. "You won't get away with this, Loki. You and your boyfriend Doom..." –

"Victor is not my 'boyfriend.'" –

"You and your whatever you two are together. – You sure you aren't boyfriends? Because the first time I saw you, I said to myself, 'Now there's a guy that pitches for the other team.' That drag queen armor of yours..."

A hand, held tight over his mouth would silence him. It would take but a moment or two, and the result, blessed, lasting quiet. Ah, but no doubt, Odin would discover what he'd done. Odin, and the thrice-cursed gatekeeper Heimdall. Loki sighs and makes himself count to ten.

"Peek-a-boo!" He covers his eyes with his hands. "Come on, you accursed... Come on, Baby Tony, play peek-a-boo with Momma!"

"God damn you, Loki." He looks again, and Stark's tiny baby hands are where they belong, covering his blue eyes. "You know I don't like..."

"_There's_ my good baby!" Loki pulls Stark's hands away. He kisses the palms, soft and baby-fragrant against his lips. "_There's_ Momma's Baby Tony!"

There is a squeal of laughter. It is nearly as pleasing as the whinnies he used to coax from Sleipnir. Sleipnir... It was a long, long time ago, when Loki's babe used to sleep at his side. And now he is in Asgard and valued by All-Father, while his mother is...

"Reindeer Games, you little fuck..." Stark giggles in spite of himself. Then he giggles some more, when Loki plays the game of Blow Bubbles on Baby's Tummy.

Loki plays the game of Up in the Air Goes Baby, and the one of Ride a Cock Horse to Asgard Square. He plays game after game, until Baby Tony bids fair to vomit all the milk-substitute he has just been fed, and then they cuddle in the rocking chair together, while he settles for his nap.

Ere Baby Tony can sleep however, there is a knock. The door opens. It is a mortal lady, garbed severely as is Midgardian custom, and with hair as long as Sif's golden locks (that Loki cut), tight-bound against her head. "I can't believe you did this! Where is he?"

Behind her, another mortal, his garb green. Behind him, is Victor. "Your presence is not welcome here, Ms. Potts."

Like Sif, the lady is forceful. _Feisty_, that is the Midgardian term for it. She turns and glares up at Victor, her nose scarce inches from his face-mask. "My _presence_? You're telling me _my_ presence isn't welcome, after you attacked Tony?" One small, feminine finger extends. She is going to _touch_Victor in a moment. Then there will be trouble. "Where is he, Doom?"

"He is here." Loki indicates the babe in his arms. "You must be quiet now. Baby Tony needs his nap."

Now the feisty Ms. Potts is after him. "_Baby_ Tony? Doom, Loki, what did you do?"

It is too late for sleep now. Baby Tony has awakened. "Pepper," he says. "You don't know how good it is to see a sane face around here."

"Tony!" Now the one in green pushes forward. "Tony, man, what did they do to you?"

"I don't know." Loki feels the shrug of baby-shoulders. "I was serving the papers on Doom here. – You remember? Like I said? – The next thing I knew, ka-bang!"

"Some kind of hardware malfunction?"

"Some kind of _magic_, I think." Baby Tony glares at Loki.

Victor: "We will repair him."

"Repair nothing! Like I'm a piece of tech? Pepper, Rhodey, get me out of here!"

"We've got to, Pep." Worried look from the one in green. "Doom _and_ Loki? You know they're plotting something." But the lady has other ideas. They are evident in her green eyes, as she looks at Baby Tony.

"They can fix him, and we can't." She eyes him where he sits, cozy in Loki's lap. "Besides, they won't kill him. Look at Loki, he likes him. Listen, Tony..." –

"Are you kidding me?" From the cute one in the diaper. "He already said he was going to kill me once, Pep."

"A mistake." Loki looks up at the mortal woman, her eyes as green as his own. "I will care for the babe as if he were my own. And Victor will heal him. Think about it," he tells her. "What other recourse do you have?"

"He's right." The lady looks down at Baby Tony. "What else are we going to do? Can you imagine what the board would say if they saw you like this?"

"The Board... The B-B-B..."

"The talking board would be most shocked I am sure. It is necessity that you be seen only in your proper form."

The one in green looks from Doom to Loki. "Listen you two, I'll be watching. Iron Man may be down for the count right now, but War Machine is still ready to go."

"I am positively terrified." Victor murmurs. "The great Justin Hammer's tech may menace me. Please cease to worry Ms. Potts, Colonel Rhodes. I have given my word, and Doom is a man of his word: Stark will be healed with all efficiency and dispatch, and he will be returned to you in the same condition he came here."

"Pepper, no!" Baby Tony moans. "Rhodey? Pep? You're not really going to leave me here?"

Headshake from the one in green: "What else can we do, Tony?"

"I can't help it," the one called Pepper says. "We've got to get you fixed. Good-bye, Tony." She bends, brushes soft lips across his baby-cheek. "I'll say this, he's more fun to kiss this way."

"Aww, Pep, _seriously_?"

"Try this." Loki blows bubbles on Baby Tony's fat belly and his protestations die into squeals of laughter.

"Maybe," Pepper says. "But only once."

She does it twice though, and when she pulls away, there are lipstick stains on Baby Tony's tummy.


	4. Doom's Laboratory, That Afternoon

The infant Stark's posterior is a convenient, plastic-wrapped paperweight, to hold open the books on the desk, when they return to Doom's laboratory. "See here, Stark..." Doom is in good humor, with the visitors gone, and nothing left to hinder his work. "Another useful application for the process." He turns a page or two: This one here, with the scar mark half-obliterating the illuminations, it has to be where Loki was reading. "If we are successful in unlocking it."

"_If_... Christ, if it were him in the diapers!"

Stark's mutter is tiny enough to ignore. Doom merely raises his voice a little. "What once was an enemy becomes a useful paperweight. - Or in Grimm's case, I think I will make him a doorstop. And Richards will be a slightly large, rubbery eraser."

"That is not what I was reading." With a regal sweep, Loki shoves the book aside, paperweight and all. Doom must snatch. He finds himself holding the infant Stark tucked in his right arm, – It is either that or let his test subject drop to the floor and be damaged. – and the book aloft in his left hand.

"I had that book open." Loki rearranges the desk. "The bunsen burner was sitting there." Doom eyes it. He will confess to some nervousness. The_Pnakotic Manuscripts_ will not be easily to replaced if they are damaged. Loki looks at him and smiles. "It was not _lit_, Victor. Do you think me a fool?" He retrieves another book and opens it. "This is the book I was reading."

"That one..." His mother's notebook.

"It had the best spells in it."

"It does." The thought of Doom's mother, long gone to the afterlife, and nevermore to reconcile with him in this or any lifetime, is a brief one, barely noticeable. "I did not think my mother had addressed the problem of breaking enchantments."

Cool voice of the Trickster: "She did not." He flips through the book. "She addressed similar subjects. The extrapolation was simple logic."

"How simple could it have been, if you managed to fuck it up?"

Interestingly, Stark has managed to step outside his own problems for the moment. He sits in Doom's arm like he belongs there, and really, it is not such an imposition to hold him. He is well shaped to be held, rather like MODOK, only softer, and more appropriately sized. Stark grips Doom's sleeve with baby fingers and leans forward, peering to see the pages of the notebook. "I ..." – He loses his balance for a moment and Doom must wrap both arms around him, purely as a matter of preserving the material for experimentation of course. – "Oh fuck, don't tell me I can't read that because I'm a baby?"

"It's in Romany," Doom says. "Don't be stupid." He moves closer. It is not so Stark can see as well. "This is a spell of communication."

"With beings from beyond your mortal realm, yes." Loki leans close. He places a hand on Doom's shoulder, – There is far too much _touching_involved in sharing a laboratory. – and the other on the infant Stark's bald head. "I should think it would be obvious why I began with that one?"

To communicate intentions, rather than to communicate directly. Doom has used it similarly, but for beings far less complex than the Asgardians.

"Big Daddy What's-His-Butt," Stark says. "Up in Asgard. You wanted to read his mind."

"I _succeeded_ in reading his mind." Loki looks at the baby Stark as if, for once, he is not pleasing to him. "Or rather, the minds of those who forged these bracelets." He raises a hand, his finger tracing the silver band on his wrist. "Dwarfs, working as I had already known, at All-Father's behest. There is a progression; one must have the understanding to discern it..." He looks at the others. "I will pronounce the incantation again."

"I will do it." Doom's hand is on Loki's arm before he knows he is doing it. _Definitely_ there is too much touching involved in sharing this space. "It is a Romany spell. Perhaps there was some mispronunciation. Perhaps your fathers seal works to misfire the spells you attempt. Tell me the steps you took."

He follows them as Loki gives them to him: Place one hand here, another there. – The infant Stark must be surrendered. Just as well. No doubt he was getting baby-smell all over Doom's cloak. – Allow the fragrance of exactly the right combination of burning herbs to permeate the room. Doom pronounces the spell as Loki instructs him. The inflections are his, his the pauses at just the correct moments. And at the end, the information unfolds, makes itself visible.

"More writing I can't read." Stark's muttered comment, from Loki's arms. "You sure it's not because I'm a baby?"

"Those are _runes_, cretin." Doom studies the text, which glows green in midair.

"Here." Loki points. "See where the dwarven planning ends... Another's hand can be seen taking the reins."

Comes Stark's voice: "Like coding."

"Tell that child I will drop him on his head if he speaks again and disturbs my concentration." Doom studies the runes. This is not "like coding", it is coding. And at the end of a sequence in one style, quite clearly, the traces of a new sequence beginning. Doom feels his heart jerk. At the least, the power to transform his enemies awaits him. At the most... Indescribable the loveliness of the prospect.

"Did you..." His mouth is dry. "Did you unlock your father's coding, Loki?"

Loki flips through the notebook. "I used another spell." The spell, to find a lost path. "Different herbs must be burning. Prepare them, Victor. The runes will remain."

The familiar task is a helpful one. It allows Doom to regain composure. First the brazier must be cleaned of ashes. Then the proper herbs must be selected, separated from their stems, and ground together. Charcoal must be lit, and the herbs placed on it. Only then can he return to pronounce his mother's spell.

They are close... – They must be close to the place where the accident happened the last time. It happened, he theorizes, because of the block on Loki's magic. His intelligence is intact, therefore the cause was not some misstep in the actions he took. Rather, this must be caused by an action of Odin's: Not only has he blocked Loki from performing magic, but he has also put some kind of fail-safe in place, so that should he attempt magic, it will fail. Doom is under no such restrictions. Therefore, this will work.

Again, Doom follows Loki's instructions. Again, the inflections and the pauses are his. It is a two-page spell. Not even will he allow Loki to turn the page for him; everything must be done to recreate the last time this was done. Doom flips the page. He pronounces the last words.

The noise that rips through the room is painful. The impact... – It is the impact that makes him fall, is it not? Doom lands hard on the ground. He looks up, up, far, far, far up, to see Stark and Loki looking down at him.

Horrible, the realization: "I am a baby too, am I not?"


	5. The Dining Room, That Evening

"Well, you did it." Stark's blue baby-eyes look down – Down, _down_, _**down**_, by blessed Saint Sarah, **_DOWN!_** – to where Doom sits on the floor. His grin is intolerably amused. "You found out what caused the transformation."

"...It's the block on Loki's powers..." Stark's voice dies away and he stares. "Uh Doom... What you're wearing..."

A few years ago conveniently enough, Doom happened to play host to Richards and his crew for a few days. While they were enjoying Latverian hospitality, he took the opportunity to study the make-up of their suits. Richards has had few, very few good ideas in his time, but he did apparently develop a useful trick that allows garments to conform to the size and shape of their wearer. Doom took this as part-payment for his room and board, and modified his armor to include it.

Thus, unlike the unfortunate Stark, he does not sit on the floor in baby nakedness, but rather in the same armor and cloak he wore as an adult. ...He rather wishes now however, that Richards' developments had included one that created a _diaper_, when one needed it. There is an unfortunate _dampness_, which may cause the armor to short-circuit if it is not dealt with soon.

"You're jealous, Stark, because some of us do not need to sit here unclothed?" Doom tests out one gauntlet: The electrical shock-beam still works nicely, he notes, as Loki jumps back with a cry. The force-field however... That might take some modifications, due to his change in dimension. "Stick around, and I may let you reverse-engineer some of my tech for a change."

"Both my babies are going to 'stick around'." Loki bends to scoop Doom from the floor without dislodging the infant Stark from his place on his hip. "My good little Baby Tony, and my bad little Baby..." He snerks. "You're _wet_, Victor." He places Stark on the floor, from which angle, Doom notes, he actually looks quite normal. "Momma Loki will diaper you."

"Doom will diaper himself."

"Take advantage, why don't you?" Stark looks more than normal, he looks _comfortable_. Given the circumstances, this is deeply disturbing. "He's really good at it. There's this thing he does with the baby powder. And he's got this cream..." Stark stretches baby-arms and smiles. "I might just take a crap right now so I can get some of that action."

Behind his – Ye gods, tiny! – mask, Doom frowns. "_Doom will diaper himself._" He reaches hands – Ye gods, equally tiny! – for the diaper as Loki returns with it. "He will also clean the wetness from his armor."

Protestations to the contrary, this actually proves less manageable than expected. Doom's brain may be the same genius-brain as always, but his central nervous system is, unfortunately, an infant's. Doom cannot diaper himself, or cleanse, or even remove his armor on his own. He also cannot feed himself, as he discovers after a jar of strained peas – Do _not_ ask! They do not, apparently, make strained Wiener Schnitzel, or strained anything else normal, for that matter. – and a tiny spoon lead to an incident that has Loki in helpless laughter.

Stark too. "If you could see yourself..." Squeals and gurgles erupt from his near-toothless mouth. "Oh god Doom, if you could see yourself..."

An angry shot from Doom's right gauntlet melts a large hole in Stark's high chair, but does nothing to stop the laughter. Doom must give up. As the saying goes, if one cannot beat them, one must join them. "Dirty babies!" Even through the armor, his own laugh emerges far too _squeal-y_and _giggly_ . "The stuff of comedy gold, are they not?"

"...And now..." Doom leans on a pea-covered elbow and looks at Loki. "What are we going to do about this?"

"_Do_, Victor?" A damp cloth in Loki's hand removes peas from Doom's face-mask. Also from other various portions of his armor. "About what?"

Doom struggles. It is not intentional. There seems to be some natural infant propensity for dirtiness involved here. "Do not pretend to stupidity."

"About your change in stature?" Loki unfastens Doom's cloak. "This will have to be washed." He cleanses peas from the top of his head. How they got there, Doom has no idea. "Why must we do anything about it?" Loki asks after a moment.

..._Why_?

"Victor, you wished to ascertain the cause of the transformation, did you not?" As he speaks, the infernal Trickster-god wipes peas away from Doom's high chair. He unfastens the tray and removes Doom, and sets him with Stark, in a cage-device on the floor. "This we have done. My own wish was and is, to regain my powers. How is it necessary that I reverse the transformation, for any who have already been transformed, in order to do that?"

"It was..." Doom finds himself wordless, silenced by the depth of the Trickster's perfidy. This _was_ their plan, was it not? That Loki should prove his repentance, by repairing the damage he had caused to Stark? Infancy has not in some way affected his memory?

"You said you'd fix me." Stark's ready mouth is welcome for a change. "You told Pep."

"I said Victor was going to fix you. He will, I am very sure of it." Loki bends close and kisses Doom's armored nose. "Won't you my Baby Victor?" He stands. "It just might take a while." He produces a stuffed toy he has acquired somewhere and places it in the cage with Doom and Stark. It is shaped like a bear, a surprisingly _disturbing_ shape, when it is larger than one's own self. "Papa Berserker is going to watch you for a little while, my Babies. Momma Loki has an invitation he must make."


	6. Later, at Bedtime

When Loki enters with a baby in his arms, Doom is not surprised. A blue-eyed baby, with a shock of blond hair fully covering his infant-head: "It is your brother, is it not?"

"My adoptive brother." Loki moves the bear and places the child where it used to be. "I think he is more pleasing this way, do you not, Victor?"

"Your brother has defenses." Doom thinks of the hammer that always hangs at Thor's waist. "What happened to Mjolnir?"

"It separated when he became small, along with the rest of his garb." Loki offers a pacifier to his new infant-charge, who takes it, a look of confusion on his face. "There is ...a small hole in your floor, Victor, and I left the Doom-bots, working to lift it."

"They will be unable to," Thor removes the pacifier to say. "Mjolnir obeys me alone."

As Doom knows, from having watched events unfold in New Mexico. "I will reprogram them to take scrapings. The metal can be analyzed. – That is not the most important issue at the moment."

"How does it help anyone to make more people into babies?" The logical (obvious) question from Stark. "What kind of plan is that? - You said you had a plan?"

"And I do." Loki busies himself. He checks, intimately, their three infant-posteriors. Diapers are applied, and then more pacifiers are dispensed. "The first two transformations were mishaps, but this one as you discern, Stark, was intentional."

"...Think." The blanket he places in the pen with them has pictures of bears on it. Really, this emphasis upon fanged, carnivorous creatures, to provide comfort for infants, seems misguided. "Who have I got here?"

"You have..." Thor looks around the pen. "The Man of Metal? Tony my friend, how came you here? ...And..." He looks at Doom. "I do not know you I am afraid."

"This is my Baby Victor." Loki picks up Doom. He dandles him. The hold is disturbingly comfortable. "We were discussing him if you'll remember, brother. You told me All-Father looks ill upon our alliance."

"Dr. Doom." Wispy golden brows draw down, and Doom is scorched by an infant-frown.

Loki sits with him in a rocking chair. It's forward-backward motion is a pleasant one. "Brother you were ever one to be distracted by trivialities. And you had the focus necessary to be King, I had not been able to send you on that fool's errand to Jotunheimr that led to your banishment. I have two mortals transformed here, but I have something much more important as well. I have All-Father's heir."

His heir... "I helped you, brother, because you told me Father would would not allow me to be transformed."

"A half-truth." There are not words for the gloating tone of Loki's voice. "He will not allow you to _remain_ transformed."

"But you told me ...Your powers..."

"Were lost because of you? And so it was only right that you should help me regain them? Thor, your stupidity surpasses that of the rest of the Nine Realms. All-Father does not care about _right_. He cares not who is at fault in this, for he already has his scapegoat. The 'fault' lies with the Jotun cuckoo in his precious Aesir nest, with the son of Laufey, kept close for reasons of his own."

"...It suits Father all too well..." – As he speaks, Loki's movement grows agitated. The chair rocks faster, so fast that Doom begins to fear he will fall. He kicks, with his unfortunately tiny feet, and fires a blast from his right glove, but to no avail. Loki seems not even to notice. – "He is comfortable keeping the Trickster powerless and exiled to Midgard. And it were but me here, I doubt anything would change for aeons, as these mortals compute time. Ah, but his heir, Thor: You watch how quickly he will respond to resolve this, now that you are affected."

The rocking motion calms. "My babies, our time together grows short." Loki tips Doom in his arms. He strokes his head. It is a pleasant feeling. "We must enjoy these last few moments, ere All-Father takes action to bring it to an end."

Doom grows drowsy. He must focus, if he would understand the complexities of this scheme. "What sort …What sort of action, Loki?"

"Obviously, he will restore my powers." Loki's hand stills in the stroking of Doom's head. "Babies do _not_ wear armor." Doom finds himself transferred to the changing table. His armor is removed, a footed pajama-device of some sort applied in replacement. They return to the chair, and the rocking recommences.

Doom yawns. "Your logic ...is flawed, Loki."

"Flawed, it's fuckin' crazy!" Stark's voice, from the pen. - "Also, when do I get rocked? I don't want to take my nap here on the floor under..." He sits up for a moment to look at the blanket. "...Under Love-A-Lot and Friendship Bear. – Your dad dumped Thor in New Mexico and then ignored him. Why's he supposed to fuckin' care just because you made him into a baby?"

"He will care." Doom hears the words through clouds of approaching baby-sleep. "Obviously the heir cannot be allowed to remain in so ignominious a condition..."

There is something here, Doom thinks, a connection that should be, but is not being made. One thing may follow the other, but does that mean the third thing will also follow? For now, he cannot see it, but it will come. In the meantime, the pen is softer than he would have expected, for sleeping in, and the blanket may have bears on it, but it is very cozy. Doom will unravel this problem later. He will solve it and, having done, he will restore his adulthood, and probably Stark's as well. ...And maybe Thor's.


	7. The Nursery, A Week Later

With grace, Doom has endured what has transpired up until now, with dignity, and with absolute fortitude. There are some who can handle seeing themselves infantized, and several positively inspiring ideas for vengeance offered and then pulled away, and there are others who cannot. No doubt surely, which category Doom falls in. A week goes by and his manners are of the most exemplary. Doom extends hospitality unstintingly to Stark and Thor. He refrains from calling Loki an idiot, no matter how many times he references his father, who will of course, immediately, come flying down from his sky-castle and set everything to rights. He also does not call him a lunatic, or kick him (much) when he is trying to apply a diaper.

Granted, he has a pacifier in his mouth most of this time. There is a reason for things being named as they are. They do indeed seem to pacify the stronger emotions. Perhaps when he has returned to adult size, Doom will develop an adult-sized version, to be used in times of great stress, such as when the Fantastic Four luck into a victory of some kind. Possibly he will also market them, preferably with some kind of mind-controlling capacity.

To return to the main point however, a week goes by. Doom is on his best behavior the whole time, which is more than can be said for anyone else. Stark is greedy of attention for his every infant demand. Thor is befuddled. – Has there ever been a man as befuddled as Thor? Or a baby? – Loki is, as said before, completely mad, and sure that they will all be rescued immediately. "Odin will not allow the heir to remain in babe-form," he keeps saying, and nothing will stop him, not Thor noting the passage of time that he spends still baby-fied, or Doom explaining, quite reasonably, that Odin could just as well un-babyfy his brother _without_ restoring his powers. The Doom-bots work tirelessly, but unsuccessfully, at removing Mjolnir from the floor, which work keeps them of course, from doing other necessary tasks such as patrolling the perimeter or menacing the tiresome idiot Spiderman. And Loki is recalcitrant about purchasing stuffed toys that do not resemble large, man-eating bears.

When a knock comes on the door, Doom is hopeful that release might have arrived. Not, of course, that there is reason to believe Odin might have arrived that way, but there are others who might be here to help him. Dr. Strange might have gotten his email. Magneto might have decided to recognize the modifications he has made to his basic anatomy over the years and treat him as the Superior Being that he is, instead of as a mere mortal human.

Doom is in the playpen with Stark and Thor. No playing is being done. Thor is asleep. Stark is doing equations on the floor of the pen, with a washable crayon. "A baby-suit." He looks at Doom. "I say we make a tactical alliance here: You've got the lab, I think I've got the math right to adjust for our giant baby-heads. I say we make one suit..." –

"_Two_ suits. And you make mine first." It is only reasonable, the laboratory being Doom's after all.

"No suits will be needed." Loki sounds tense, grumpy. This is bad; grumpy, Loki feeds them even worse food than usual, and gives frequent baths, sometimes without the application of baby powder afterward. "I am about to re-establish communication with The Other. All-Father spurns my appeals, but I am sure Thanos will be more responsive. I am, after all, the strongest spell-caster in the Nine Realms, save for these things." He looks bitterly at Odin's bracelets, loose on his thin wrists.

Thanos, who used Loki for his own ends the other time, and lifted not a finger when he was taken into custody and returned to Asgard. Doom looks at Stark; an expression of desperation is shared. Then both look toward the door, as the tap-tap-tap of footsteps grows louder.

"Tony!?" The estimable Ms. Potts dodges the Doom-bots who are attempting to deny her entrance (this is what comes of turning _off_ the "shoot-first" setting) and hurries to snatch her employer out of the playpen. She cradles him to her bosom, where Stark seems very content. Then she glares at Doom. "You said he'd be fixed."

"There have been unforeseen circumstances."

"So I see." Ms. Potts eyes him. Embarrassing in the extreme, to be eyed by so formidable a woman, when one is infant-sized, and dressed in a footed bear-pajama. "I suspected something like this might have happened," she says. "That's why I brought help."

Help. The military man? The one with Justin Hammer's suit? He is going to take Stark back to his old life as-is? In baby form?

"Apparently Loki can't be bothered doing what he promised to do." Ms. Potts glares, and Loki looks back at her, eyebrows raised superciliously. "And since it seems to be beyond you two geniuses to fix this..." She turns a look of withering contempt Doom and Stark's way. "There's another genius in New York who's got a reputation for being able to solve things like this. He's supposed to be better than either of you."

_Magneto, let it be Magneto. ...Or MODOK's pretty smart when he wants to be... He'd do too._

Ms. Potts doesn't step out of the way, instead, she is _pushed_. A shock of blond hair fills Doom's vision, followed by a mountain of orangeish stone.

"Doom?" The annoying blue eyes of Richards' idiot brother-in-law loom above the wall of the playpen. "Seriously, that's him? Holy fuck, Pepper, I thought you were making this up. High five." He extends a hand Grimm's way, then dodges and spins. "Too slow."

"That's _Ms. Potts_ to you." The lady steps aside to usher the other two guests in. "Ms. Richards, would you like to hold one of these babies?"

"Call me Susan." Richards' wife bends, and Doom is being tickled – Tickled! – under the chin. "Oh my goodness Victor, aren't you _cute_ this way! ...But I'm sure you wouldn't like to be held."

Wise choice. Doom would have punished any _holding_ in the way babies punish things, with vomit, or a well-timed bowel movement.

"I'll take this little sweetums." She picks up Thor instead.

Ms. Potts turns to Richards. She indicates the tiny industrialist in her arms. "Can you fix him?"

"No fixing will be necessary." Thor speaks from Susan Storm's arms, where he seems also quite content, to be cradled against a bosom. "And my brother shows repentance..." –

"It is surely being shown." Loki waves his hand. He indicates the play pen, the pile of stuffed bears in it, and the high chairs that stand around the room. "Do I not care for these babes with the tenderness of a mother?"

...It _isn't_ being shown, as Loki continues time and again to do the spells that will create more babies. Doom bites his tongue and says nothing. At the very least, he may get to see Richards transformed, before this is over.

Richards looks at the babies. He looks at Ms. Potts. "I'll do my best."

"Which will undoubtedly be just what we need," Doom murmurs. "Because you are after all, a genius." He endeavors to infuse the words with the proper, convincing tone, to ensure that at least one, if not four, experiments will be made and, ideally, four _fantastic_ nuisances will get to enjoy the wonders of baby-life with him.


	8. The Laboratory and the Nursery

Their lifespans brief, the mortals grow impatient almost as soon as Loki sends his challenge to Odin. Words are exchanged. Loki hears (but does not acknowledge) Victor talking to Stark, questioning his sanity, pinning hope upon more of their mortal _tech_, rather than on the world-conquering might of All-Father. It is foolishness. By the standards of Asgard, mere moments have passed. Odin has scarce had time to see Thor's transformation, much less to formulate a response. He will notice, surely. It will be in his own time, but he will notice, and things will be changed when that has happened.

Meantime however, Stark's woman, the _feisty_ Ms. Potts has made another appearance. She has introduced more mortals into the household, some more of the insects called "super-heroes", who pretend to a power similar to that of the gods. Loki allows them to remain. They will keep the minds of his mortal charges busy, and amuse them, while Loki awaits All-Father's response.

The eldest of the four calls himself "Mr. Fantastic". He is a "genius", in the designation of Ms. Potts. His first action upon arriving in Loki's household, a demand for another reiteration of the spells which have transformed three already.

"Foolishness." Loki is kind.

"Not at all." – The self-designated Mr. Fantastic's body moves in ways no mortal's body should move. He _bends_ at odd angles, and _stretches_ in places where no mortal should properly stretch. – "You have your own goals Loki, and I understand that. My goal is different: Pepper asked me to find a way to reverse Tony's transformation, and I can't do that until I understand what I'm dealing with."

He asks to be turned into a child? None can believe it. E'en Stark uses words like "insane," and "fuckin' crazy," while Victor makes several quite audible comments about "the kind of idiot who should be hospitalized, instead of running around mucking with other peoples' plans." Loki however, indulges the lunatic. And why not, pray? Mortals are more easily guarded when they are small in stature; they are more cooperative, when one controls their access to basic materials such as strained peas and diapers.

Once again, the books are opened. The herbs are set burning, and the spells are performed. Loki hears a small, shocked little noise come from the one called "Susan", as her husband changes so radically. Then it is over, and Baby Reed joins Loki's adoptive family.

It is _rather awkward_ holding a babe of such flexibility. Diapers slide off. Bits of Baby Reed droop out of his high chair and trail on the floor. Baby Victor finds the whole thing _most_ amusing, and Baby Tony is entertained as well, but in terms of accomplishing the mortals' goal? Ah well, had they but listened to Loki, they'd have known what to expect.

The nuisance of the whole thing, is that now three of Loki's babes insist upon spending hours of their time in the laboratory. High chairs must be set up within reach of the counters. Doom-bots must be summoned to fetch and carry, and hold Bunsen burners and the like.

"Such silliness." With gentle hand, Loki ruffles the tousle of – For some reason, _greyish_ – hair on the head of his new Baby Reed. "And it pleases my infants, you may amuse yourself in here, until it is time for your naps. Pray tell me though, _why_ do you desire it so fiercely?"

Baby Reed speaks of "experiments", and of "the scientific method." Baby Victor speaks, unjustifiably, of "_someone_ finally getting their priorities right." He then looks at Baby Reed with a glower, and claps baby-hands o'er his little mouth. Baby Tony snickers.

"Nice to see you two not squabbling for a change," he says. "But really Reed, what are the odds that we'll fix this, when it was caused by magic?"

Baby Reed speaks of the "spirit of experimentation". Mortals are referenced, Thomas Edison specifically, and another, also long-dead, named Isaac Newton. Baby Victor points out with some smugness that he alone of the three of them, has knowledge of magic as well as of science. That this has not been helpful up until this point matters not a whit to any of them. Ah well, entertainment is helpful for the development of infant-brains. Loki for his part, merely assigns the one called "The Human Torch" to supervise the babes in the laboratory. Should there be trouble, he would like someone more responsible than a mere Doom-bot on hand.

As for himself, he returns to the nursery to check on his other charge, where he finds Baby Thor, still cuddled in the arms of the one named Susan.

"My brother is right." Thor rests his head against a bosom imprinted with a "4". "Father knows what has happened. He will take action upon it in his own time. He waits..." – Thor closes his eyes in infant-bliss, as Susan strokes his blond head. – "...He waits only upon a show of genuine repentance, on my brother's part."

"What about you?" Susan tickles the round tummy inside Thor's sleeper-pajamas. "You don't have anything to repent for. Why doesn't he at least come un-babyfy you?"

A yawn. "Father will come. Our Aesir time is different from that of you mortals." Thor snuggles closer. "A pacifier, fair Lady Susan, would you be so kind as to fetch such from the changing table? That, or perhaps a bottle?"

It is not feeding time for another two hours. Furthermore, the pacifier was withdrawn because it bade fair to make Baby's teeth come in crooked. Loki moves forward.

Susan has experience with babies though. Already she has seated herself in the rocker ere Loki can enter. Already Thor's thumb pops into his infant-mouth, and he slumbers.

"Don't worry about his teeth," Susan tells Loki as he enters. "My Franklin sucked his thumb until he was five, and his teeth are perfect. ...Also, I've had some experience negotiating with extra-dimensional beings. Do you want me to try talking to your father?"


	9. The Laboratory Again -- Edit

It is Richards' mismanagement that causes his experiment to go awry, although he blames it upon Johnny. Granted, having the younger Storm bouncing about the laboratory, singing what he calls "The Doom Song," over and over, grows a bit tiresome, but a real scientist could have ignored the distraction. Doom himself, has found an i-pod useful, and the earbuds still fit ...mostly, into his baby-ears. He does not offer loan of his i-pod to Richards of course, but really, the man knew he was bringing Storm along; he should have come better prepared.

Instead, picture the scene: Three scientists cluster around the laboratory counter. - They are small perhaps, and clad in bear-patterned footie pajamas rather than lab coats, but they are scientists nonetheless. – Smoke wreathes them, from the beakers over the bunsen burners. Bottles and measuring utensils stand at ready, as well as Doom-bots, should things need to be brought from the other side of the room where their high chairs will not go.

Richards wears a protective mask (the coward), with a big knot in the elastic, to accommodate his tiny head. He chooses carefully from Doom's stock of chemicals, and titrates with precision. The potion changes color once, then again. Foam rushes toward the top of the beaker, and Richards waves his hand, calling for Storm's assistance.

"Doomy, doomy, doomy, doomy, doom!" The noise is jarring, right in Doom's ear. He turns swatting, but Storm is already out of reach.

"Goddammit, Johnny! Get the fuckin' beaker!"

Meanwhile, Stark, wearing asbestos mitts that are almost as large as he is, has it already. He rests it on an asbestos mat, and mutters something about _if you allow dumbasses into the lab with you,_ a sentiment with which Doom thoroughly agrees.

Richards studies his notes. "Probably this will be okay."

"I'd start over if I were you." Stark's hand, still mitted, touches his arm.

"No, no, I think this will work. I still have the correct dose here and then some." He grasps the beaker, then drops it as fast as he's picked it up. "Goddamn baby hands with no calluses... "

Again, liquid spills. Again, Stark advises a fresh start. It appears though, that Richards needs only a deciliter of the fluid, and there are just barely three deciliters left. "The other two are for you." Richards gives a toothless baby-smile. "Because I promised Pepper of course, and because we used to be friends in the old days, Victor."

No they didn't. Doom has always had better taste.

"I would not drink anything of your making if I was dying of thirst on the twelfth moon of Saturn," he says. Nonetheless, there is an undeniable surge of excitement as Storm manages the titration and hands Richards the correct dose. If this should prove successful, he might ...almost... be willing to take back some of the things he has said about Richards over the years ...a couple of them.

Then of course the inevitable moment when it is proven yet again, that Richards cannot be trusted with a child's chemistry set. – Not with a pack of Mentos and a Diet Coke. – Baby-legs surge with immensity through the leg-holes of Richards' high chair. His baby-head shoots toward the ceiling, and there is an unwelcome _creaking_ sound from the high chair, as his baby-body grows to elephantine size.

"Well, you're big, anyway." Storm grins. "That's progress, right?"

Baby-brows draw close over Richards' (now-huge) baby-nose. "This is your fault," he says. "Now get me out of here."

Flame-power works satisfactorily to weld a way out of the high chair, thus proving that Richards is not only a failure in his own right, but not even as useful to have around as the annoying Johnny. The high chair of course, is completely ruined.

Storm sets some Doom-bots to the job of holding his brother-in-law. It takes five of them, in his newly-enlarged state. He gives a weak grin. "We'd better talk to Susan about this."

The estimable Mrs. Richards proves to be incommunicado. Time is spent in waiting. The younger Storm's services are required for an impromptu, but very necessary, diapering. Grimm is pressed into service to maneuver the now-oversized Richards properly into position.

"Susie's talkin' to Odin," he tells them.

"Odin?" Staples do _not_ work well in attaching diapers to large baby-posteriors. This Storm finds out through experience.

"The King of ...Asgard... – Ouch, that hurt like a motherfucker!" They do work well however, in spicing up Richards' normally-tame vocabulary. "Dammit Johnny, did it occur to you, you could have done this _before_ you put it on me?"

"Not my fault. We didn't know how many of these things it would take. Plus Doom only has a staple-gun..." -

Doom actually has several normal staplers, but where would be the fun in using those? –

"Ben, throw the diaper cream over this way."

There proves not to be enough of this to cover the acreage of Richards' hindquarters. _Petroleum jelly_ must be added to compensate, plus a vial of rendered animal-fat that Doom keeps around for dark rituals. Doom, who had been planning a well-timed bowel movement specifically to inconvenience the diaperers, chooses to re-think his plans.

...Stark does not. There is nothing left but the ritual fat, by the time Grimm and Storm get to him.

"Why..." Stark begins, then pulls away from Grimm's rocky touch. – "Ouch! Oh fuck Doom, what the hell's in this stuff?"

Henbane, knot weed and deadly nightshade. What does he put in his? "It is not fatal," Doom says, feeling kind. –

"Why's she talking to Odin?"

The door opens and Thor emerges, still cradled in Susan Richards' maternal arms. "The Lady Susan didst offer to speak to Father on Loki's behalf." The words emerge as a coo, from his baby-lips. "She doth say ofttimes a third party can intervene to bring families back into concordance."

She was not successful; the baby-shape of Loki's brother is proof sufficient of that.

"What happened?" Richards asks.

Thor bows his head. "Father said he would speak to no mortal. Loki's sentence remains, as he has yet to demonstrate repentance, and if I wish assistance myself, I must journey to Asgard."

In baby-form. The prospect is amusing.

"He ...er, ah... He knows you're a baby?" Richards asks him.

Thor nods. "Father is using the power of the Tesseract to bring me home tonight," he says. "He asks that I be furnished with a clean diaper for the trip."


	10. Once Again in the Laboratory

Richards in giant-baby form is a nuisance to have about the Embassy. Multiple Doom-bots are required to carry him wherever he goes, and his posterior is too large for any chair save Doom's personal throne. The throne then, must be fitted out with a protective strap to keep him from falling.

"I trust," – Doom speaks as politely as possible. – "that you will repair any damage from the straps?"

Richards nods. "You bet. - I can't help it, Victor." He shrugs, his shoulders still _very flexible_, despite the change in proportion. "This darned baby-coordination, you know."

Doom knows. Oh yes, he knows.

"It's probably why my formula didn't work. ...That and Johnny making it boil over."

"Your formula didn't work because you are an idiot." Doom speaks mere, reasoned truth. "I should not have allowed you and your lot house-room."

"You're going to need us," says Mrs. Richards. "Even with Thor gone, you've got a lot of babies here. Too many for just Loki to take care of."

Loki, for his part, seems bitter and subdued. He watches with arms folded, as his brother is placed in the designated spot to await transport by his father.

"The Tesseract," he mutters. "Odin would not have it, were it not for me."

De-materialization occurs. His brother is transported, presumably back to Asgard. Loki turns, a furious scowl upon his face.

"And thus it ends." He picks up a teddy bear and throws it across the room. "Once again All-Father shows that the Sly One matters not in his estimation."

"Maybe if you'd repent," Mrs. Richards ventures, "like your brother said..."

"Silence your blatting, woman." Nose-to-nose, Loki grits out his words: "For what is Loki Silvertongue to repent? I have done nothing. And Thor is_not_ my brother. My lineage is another's." By the end of the diatribe his hands are on Mrs. Richards' arms, his fingers digging in. It occurs to Doom to wonder whether the erstwhile Invisible Girl has a force-field in place to protect from bruises. He will have to look at her upper arms if he gets a chance, the next time she diapers him.

"Listen, you better keep your hands off Susie." Grimm puts a big orange hand on Loki's shoulder. It's a warning, but a reasonable one (For once. From somebody who is rarely more than an idiot, useful or otherwise). "You got some anger issues, you should deal with, you know that skinny?"

Loki snarls, tries to shake himself free.

"You should listen to Ben." Mrs. Richards turns to the orange-colored Thing. "Ben, can you teach Loki those coping skills you learned in ...ah... That you learned that time?"

_In therapy,_ she means. Poor, broken Ben Grimm... Sometime, Doom will gloat about it, but not now. Again, reason is coming from a source unexpected.

"It's a good idea." Stark speaks before Doom can find words for such an unusual eventuality. It is, actually, a very very good idea. Loki's rage, while useful at first, bids fair to put Doom and his plans at risk.

Again before he can speak however, sounds the annoying Johnny: "Yeah, plus I can get video. Do that thing with the tennis racket and the pillow, 'kay Ben? Like you did that time, when I..." – Doom hears the grit of Grimm's stony teeth. – "You know that vid's got the most Likes of anything on our page," he adds defensively, then dances out of the way as Grimm swings a huge, orange fist.

"No tennis rackets." Grimm and Loki say it together.

"On the contrary," Mrs. Richards says. "I think he needs all the strategies you learned, Ben. I'll – Ah, _we'll..._" She looks from Johnny to Doom with a stern expression. If he did not agree with her, he would be forced to oppose... But unfortunately, he does. – "...We'll all leave you alone, won't we?"

Doom's throne is pressed into service again, as a chair for Richards. Four Doom-bots are required to push it into the laboratory and once he is ensconced in it, it proves surprisingly, to be Stark who protests.

"His experiments didn't work," he says. "Why do we need him?"

It comes ill to speak well of Richards, but needs must. "We must build upon his failures to reach success," Doom says.

Mrs. Richards nods. "That's some nice cooperation, Victor. And Johnny?" She turns to her brother. "You're going to help in the lab again, okay?"

Doom is blocked from giving him a mind-control device to ensure good behavior (apparently the rewards for "nice cooperation" go only so far). He does, however, triply reinforce the Doom-bots, and put the room's AI in emergency mode in case of accident.

* * *

Barely audibly, Grimm's teaching of Loki can be heard in the laboratory. There are the sound of voices, vague thumping noises which could be a tennis racket on a pillow. _Johnny_, Doom has neutralized with loan of his i-pod. He has the earbuds in place and nods quietly, occasionally making noises about "Skrillex", and "Deadmau5", and other things that make no sense at all.

Doom looks at Richards, enthroned (sadly, all too literally _enthroned_) near the testing table in the laboratory. "You don't bother me, and we will all be able to coexist satisfactorily in here."

Helpful Richards: "You want me to stay out of the way?"

"I want you dead." Doom signals the nearest Doom-bot to move his chair closer to the table. "Quiet will suffice for now however. Give me your notes from the last experiment. I am sure my experimentation will make them better."

"I didn't write them down. – Sorry, Victor." Richards waves a hand vaguely. "Baby-coordination, you know."

_Baby-coordination..._ Thus does Doom come into partnership with Richards, a thing he has managed to avoid his entire life. "Up until now," he mutters, setting to work.

The ingredients for the enlarging mixture are, for the most part, the same as Doom would have used. He is makes some improvements in the mix, drawing from his studies in the occult to add certain dark elements, and say a suitable incantation or two. Stark for his part, modifies a Doom-bots to cook the mixture, heating it to the proper temperature for the proper time, then decanting into test tubes at the correct moment and serving their portions to them.

"Making robots that cook stuff is kind of a specialty. I think I'll call him Doom-E."

"No you won't." Doom looks at Richards. "You will help by testing the mixture."

He shakes his big-baby head. "I'm not your lab rat, Victor."

"You tested it before. What could possibly be different?"

"I tested _my_ mixture."

"Fine," Doom says. "I will take the first dose myself. Let it be on your head, Richards, if I am disfigured ..._more than I was the last time._"

The _last time_. Which was also his fault. Richards huffs a big-baby sigh. "Give me the formula."

Doom has calibrated dosage with precision to correspond with the difference in their atomic mass. Doom-E hands Richards his tubeful. "Cherry-flavored. I'm just that good."

Richards eyes it with trepidation. "I'm sorry, it's just you've tried to kill me a couple of times, Victor."

"Did I _say_ I was going to kill you this time?"

"Well, no." He drinks.

Two sets of eyes watch, his and Stark's (Johnny has discovered the video function on the ipod). For a long while, nothing happens.

"Your formula," Stark says, "it's no bet..."

The word stops, half-spoken, as they witness the transformation. Richards' head shrinks, his body lengthens. His plump, baby-arms and legs turn bony and masculine again.

"He is an adult." Doom barely breathes the words. He gestures to Doom-E. "Another dose, child-sized."

The test tube is in his hand. He sees, but does not notice as a third dose is poured for Stark. This is it, he has done it. – _He_ has done it, and not the accursed Richards. Even though he is the first one to benefit. Doom raises the tube to his lips. He drinks. Then he waits long moments for his own transformation.

Patience is required. Doom is patient, but ah, the sweet, pain of waiting for so desired an event! He closes his eyes. He listens, the only sound the hammering of his own heart in his ears. Then Doom hears footsteps. Small, patting footsteps. Like a child's. He opens his eyes.

A three-foot Stark looks back at him. The beard, a slight pepper-and-salt sprinkling to his untidy hair, his muscles the ones he maintains with such vanity, through regular sessions with a personal trainer: He is the same Stark Doom has dealt with time and again, only different now, as if he has been miniaturized.

"You made us midgets."

"_I_ made you nothing." Doom stands. His diaper, he holds in place with his hands until such time as appropriate garments may be found. Perhaps he has sufficient scrap metal to patch together a miniature set of armor? "This is Richards' fault." He looks at his arch-nemesis, who now towers over him, twice his height. "He did this to us." ...Somehow...


	11. In the Grand Embassy Dining Room

"Your face..." Three-foot tall Stark stands, too small a distance away. He stares.

It is the _scars_, Doom thinks, the monstrous disfigurement he suffered due to Reed Richards' incompetence. He does _not_ feel discomfort at their being seen for once; certainly he does not feel enough that he would do so weak a thing as to bring his hands up and try and hide them (and besides, he needs both hands to keep the infernal _diaper_ up around his waist). It is not he who is responsible for them. If there is shame, let it be on Richards' head.

Doom stares back, even though Stark is much too close. They are practically touching, and Doom does not care to be touched. "You've never seen a face before?"

Nosy blue eyes are less than two feet away from him. Does the man always intrude on others' personal space like this? "It's just ...The scars...They're..."

"A disfigurement?" Doom snorts. "So is your beard, and yet I make no comment."

"They're kind of little, is what I was going to say." Feeling somewhat unwelcomed by Doom for some reason, Stark turns his prattle toward Richards. He has to look up several feet to do so. "And there are only two of them. I thought... Didn't I hear Doom had to wear that armor because of scars from an accident?"

"Well there was an accident on Victor's space station. We ...well you know what happened to us. And Victor got hurt too." Richards looks Doom's way. "I ...ah, I never asked how that was connected with the armor."

And he won't now. At least he'd better not. Doom's armor is his own business.

"We will need clothing." Doom looks around. "You, Richards, get your useless brother-in-law to work finding the things we were wearing when we got babyized."

Storm finds their clothing in the closet of Doom's reception room (called _the nursery_ for too long now, by Loki). Once it has been found, Doom is free to resume his armor, which conforms as it was designed to do, to his current proportions. The ridiculous blue suit normally worn by Richards, which has similar properties, goes to Stark. It is ...adequate. And for Richards himself, Doom is kind enough to loan a pair of pajamas. They were given by MODOK, in an attempt to curry favor, and their fleecy, footed warmth, not to mention the picture of Doom's face on the front of the shirt, are _amusing_, when worn by his enemy.

After that, Storm presents himself. "I'm hungry."

Doom's kind offer of food is refused. The danger of irradiated food is so often over-estimated, by those who have not been irradiated themselves. Storm should be grateful that he was not hung upside-down in the dungeon instead, for his insolence. Furthermore, Latverian goulash is improved by a judicious application of gamma ray. It is part of Doom's recipe. When it proves the rest of the intruders upon his privacy feel as Storm does too however, he condescends to permit them to send out for other food. Thereafter, pizza arrives, with just sufficient lateness that Doom is able to refuse payment (but not quite enough to justify torturing the delivery person). It is ...edible.

"It's because you drank your formula before Doom's." - Stark is busily engaged in picking small, squashy things off the pizza. "Anchovies, Christ! Who the fuck wanted them?"

"It's for Ben," Richards says. "He's been keeping Kosher: No meat on the pizza. – You're right, Tony. I drank both formulas, first mine and then Victor's. I'll reconstruct mine after we finish eating. You can drink it. Hopefully that'll be all you need."

"The formula must be exactly the same." It comes ill for Doom to discuss planning with one of Richards' inferior intellect, but in this case it is in his best interests. There are a few, only a few benefits that he can find to his current size; certainly not enough to outweigh those of returning to normal. He eyes Richards. "You are sure you remember it correctly?"

The Fantastic One nods. "Down to the asbestos fibers that got in when I dropped the beaker. – Remember though, I took my formula before yours. The interesting thing will be to see if we get the same results when the order is reversed."

_Interesting_, yes. That is certainly one way to put it. What will be even more _interesting_ will be the follow-up experiments Doom does if it does not, using a mind-transfer device he has been working on. It might be quite fun, having a stretchable body for a while, and letting Richards live (provided he lets him live) with his own, shrunken one. Perhaps he will put Stark's mind in Richards as well. He can probably dominate him well enough from there when he needs to. ...Or possibly he will keep him as a pet. He is somewhat entertaining, from time to time, when he chooses to be.

That would not be now, however, when it seems he is competing with the egregious Storm to see which of them can eat more of the pizza.

"Four slices!" The slices look almost as big as Stark himself. When he holds one in both hands, the crust-end droops nearly to waist level. "...No, wait: Five!"

"Eight!" As he speaks, Storm picks up two more in each hand. "Hey Tony, think we can eat all of this before Ben gets here?"

The door opens. "Eat all of what?" The burly form and obnoxious voice of Grimm fill the room. "Is that pizza? Hey Loki, you ever tried pizza?"

From the hallway comes the Trickster's voice: "Your mortal food holds no interest for me."

It is the same comment Loki makes no matter what Doom offers him. It's never seemed to stop his eating his fill however, of whatever Doom was serving. Now though as he enters, he barely glances at the food, but instead, looks toward Doom and Stark.

"My babes!" His eyes grow cool as he bends and sees them, and he rises, turning away. "You are less interesting this way."

"Loki, c'mere." From Grimm, as he roots through empty pizza boxes. "What the hell... Hey Reed, you bother saving me any pizza? – Johnny?"

A snerk from the obnoxious Human Torch, followed immediately by Richard's voice: "I saved a whole pizza for you, Ben. Over here."

"Great. Let me get some beer to go with it."

Beer? Is there such a thing in the Embassy? Apparently there is, for Grimm reappears in short order, with a ringed six-pack in each hand. He tosses cans everyone's way. Doom gets one that is almost as large as himself. Normally he favors a fine aged Latverian Tokay, but the beer is acceptable accompaniment for a meal of pizza. His own beer in hand, Grimm leans back. "Got to say, this ain't bad, Doom. You're bein' real nice about letting us stay here. -"

Doom's snort of contempt. "Through necessity alone, I assure you."

"Yeah yeah sure, I know." A wave of Grimm's gigantic, rocky paw. "Same on both sides of course. – But the food's good. The accommodations... Well your Embassy ain't much from the outside, but it's pretty comfy to stay in. And the company's all right. Y'know Loki might be kind of grumpy on the outside, but he's an okay guy once ya get to know him."

_Loki._ Right. And Abomination is just a grouchy fella with a skin condition. "He'd kill you if you were in his way to the door."

"Yeah, yeah, of course." Another wave of the hand. Grimm looks down the table at the demigod, who is currently managing with complete elegance to get through more pizza and beer than any of them. "Hey kid, how ya liking that pizza?"

Loki lifts one eyebrow. "I was an adult ere you were even born, Benjamin." He looks down at the pile of crusts in front of him, then back up at him. "The pizza is edible. The beer, however, cannot be compared with good, Asgardian ale."

"Yeah, everyone says that about Budweiser. Want another one?"

A nod, a surprisingly agreeable nod, from Loki, and Grimm lumbers off to the kitchen to fetch more.

Stark looks at Doom. "You probably won't like to hear it from me either Doom, but I have to say, I appreciate how nice you're being about letting us stay here. You know I never knew how much we had in common before now."

Oh really. Why must they all prattle on so, about _friendship_ and _who gets along with whom_, as if they're a bunch of ten-year old girls? – As if he has strayed somehow, onto the set of _My Little Pony_? Doom raises an eyebrow, albeit an unseen one (He will have to make plans to modify his armor somehow, to convey facial expression). "I am your superior, Stark, in intellect, and in scientific and technical ability." He does not _leave_ the others' presence however, and when Grimm returns, he accepts offer of a second can of beer.

* * *

Note: The ...ah _scars_: Myself, I like the version where they're pretty tiny, but Doom hates the thought of any imperfection so much that he puts his mask on while it's still red-hot and melts his whole face away. But try writing fluff about a guy with a melted, disfigured face. I make them small here, based on my understanding of the 2005 Fantastic Four movie, where Doom gets a couple of little silver lines on his face and then practically freaks out about them.


	12. The Dining Room, Guests Departing

When Thor finally returns, he finds them in the kitchen, eating cinnamon rolls. – Do _not_ ask! Doom would not have known there was so much _junk food_ in New York City. – Richards' formula has proved sufficient, barely, to their needs, and all three of the former babies are now restored in stature as well as in maturity. As for Stark and the _Fantastic_ Ones, they are to leave ...soon. Loki was insistent upon their remaining long enough to eat the cinnamon rolls.

Thor arrives, as always, in a burst of thunder. ...He arrives, and proves to be, unlike the others, still in infant form. Odin however, in his wisdom, has provided him with a shrunken version of the hammer Mjolnir. This, he waves, in a tiny, infant-hand, while he glares at Loki. "Restore me, villain, as you have restored the others, if e'er you would call yourself my brother again."

"There are just two things wrong with that." Loki, for his part, is peeling cinnamon rolls apart with dainty fingers. He raises one finger, frosting-smeared. "One, I would not, ever, be considered brother to an oaf like you. And two..." Another finger. Loki smiles. "It was not I who transformed the mortals, as would have been known to any but a clot like you. My powers are _sealed_, Thor, remember?"

"Plus I don't know if we want you transformed yet," Stark tells Thor. "Loki likes having a baby around, and you're the only one left."

"A contented Loki is a pleasant Loki," says Richards. "He's easier to deal with when he's in a good mood."

"That is immaterial." Doom for his part, eats his rolls with a knife and fork, the better to avoid frosting-smears on his gauntlets. "Do you forget, Richards, that you and your execrable clan are going to be leaving soon?"

"Oh, as soon as possible." Richards takes another roll.

"Quite soon." Mrs. Richards pours herself coffee.

And, "Pretty soon," chimes in their rocky friend through a mouthful of cinnamon roll. "Loki and I got something we want to do first. I'm gonna try some lutefisk, and he's gonna try gefilte fish. We got a bet going over which one is worse."

"Gefilte fish. No contest." Stark grabs the last roll and stands. "Well Pepper found out I'm normal again. She says she'll have my ass if I miss the Board meeting at 4:00."

Doom eyes him. He will not be missed. There are computers that will play chess with you, and besides, Doom's own tech-ideas are better. "You're lucky I let you keep your head, Stark," he growls. "I would be well within my rights to keep you here, and do as I choose to you. But Doom knows gratitude. You were after all, partly responsible for our restoration."

"Anyway, going to a Board meeting's way worse torture than anything you could think of." Stark pulls a phone from his again-full-sized pocket. "Pepper? That you? Car's outside, right?"

Richards stands. "We'd better go too."

_Yes, and the sooner the better..._ "I am surprised that you haven't left already." Doom does not even look up, from the roll he is dissecting on his plate. "Doom is merciful yes, but really, to have trespassed for so long: What makes you think you are worthy?"

"Well, there were the rolls." A flexible hand gestures toward the now-empty plate. "And there was Loki." He looks at Stark. "Can you give us a ride downtown?"

"Grimm won't fit," Stark says.

"Grimm will not be going, if you will remember." Coolly, Loki continues to pick apart his own roll. "I will send him back intact, I assure you."

"And of he doesn't: Clobbering." With a frosting-smeared paw, Grimm slaps Loki's back, the demigod, for his part, shying away with a grimace.

"Listen, c'mon, kiddo. Best Kosher restaurant in New York is over on Yancy Street. – Where we goin' to get the lutefisk?"

The _lutefisk_, if Doom is not mistaken, is the foul-smelling compound that now infects the kitchen.

Loki smiles. "It is being prepared." He looks at Thor. "Perhaps my _dear brother_ will taste-test it for us?"

Thor shudders. He looks from him to Doom, and from them, to the retreating backs of the others. Then his gaze returns to Doom. "They are gone," he says. "And what of you, Lord Doom? Will you also leave me in this form?"

Doom looks at Loki. Already the demigod bends close, so eager is he to cradle the last of his babies. "Even a fool such as Richards can speak wisdom, Thor: Your brother is a difficult guest at best, but he is less difficult when he has a child to tend."

"Come, my babe." With little swatting motions, Loki fends off the blows of the mini-Mjolnir. He chuckles. "Mayhap you will find the food at Benjamin's restaurant more to your taste, Thunderer."

Stricken, Thor stares. "But you cannot mean it?"

As it happens, Doom does not. Interests of kindness, as well as practicality intrude. "I still have, as you surmised, the ingredients necessary for restoring you. What would you say to a deal: Your maturity, in exchange for the unsealing of your brother's powers?"

"But..." Wide blue eyes and an open, drooling mouth stare at him. "Loki is not yet reformed as Father ordered."

"Am I not?" Loki begins, but Doom shushes him.

"Yes, but your father need not know that," he says, and slowly, comprehension lights the eyes of the Thunder God.


	13. Happy Return of a Trickster, Restored

"Thy plan will not work, foul villain." Morning has come, and Thor sits in the one remaining high-chair. Doom, for his part, feeds strained peas into him whenever his mouth is still long enough. The substance is unpleasantly gloopy in texture, and the process of feeding rather too ..._intimate_ for his taste, but the peas, at least, do not show up when they spatter his green tunic and cloak. "Father..." – He stops to swallow as a spoonful of peas goes in. – "...Father will not be taken in by your deception."

"Not by ours alone, Thunderer." Loki has foresworn the task of feeding his beloved Baby to admire himself in the mirror. He wears very long sleeves, and studies his arms, as if preparing to see them once again bracelet-less. His voice is the silky, pleased-cat voice that suits him best. "You will help us."

"You'll make the appeal. Your brother will..." Doom waves the spoon vaguely, avoiding by bare microns, an unpleasant spatter of peas upon his iron breastplate. "He'll visit homeless shelters," he says. "There are some, I am sure, in the city. He will care for orphans. I believe I can furnish some from Latveria, should it prove necessary."

_Orphans_, small, ragged scraps of humanity, often unpleasantly perky in demeanor: Doom hopes it will _not_ prove necessary.

"Thou hast naught to fear, surely, brother." In full Trickster-mode, Loki leans close and chucks Thor under his baby-chin. His smile is warm, and more sincere than is necessary for so gullible a victim. Maybe he believes his own deceptions while he makes them. "My powers will be restored with or without your help, you know that don't you? Victor will help me." He looks at him, a sweet, innocent smirk, on those pretty, deceptive lips of his. "You know he has the ability."

"It will take longer, but I will do it, no matter the death or the human sacrifice required." The face-plates of the mask creak as Doom manipulates his lips toward a winning smile.

Loki jabs him in the ribs. "Don't do that, you're scaring Baby."

"I want to help persuade..."

Loki interrupts. "Feed him more peas instead." He waits until Doom's gotten Thor's mouth completely full, then continues. "Would you have me rampage unchecked, throughout your beloved Midgard? Have you contemplated the possibility fully, brother? I am to aid Victor in his plans once my powers are restored. He is planning... – What is it you are planning, Victor dear?"

Victor ..._dear_... It takes a moment for Doom to regain his thought processes. "I am ...I am planning destruction of ...Of a city... Possibly two..." The other challenge to his thought processes here, is that his plans are _not_ "rampages", whatever Loki may urge to the contrary. They are designed to _help_ humanity, depriving them of various things they don't need such as the Fantastic Four and their civil liberties only for their own greater good. "...Probably there will be some killing involved."

"Truly, thou art evil." Thor scorches him with a baby-glare. –

"My point, brother..." Loki clears his throat. "Who wouldst thou have stop me in these depredations, Thor? Who is there whose power e'en approaches my own?"

"The Hulk..."

Doom snorts. "Hulk likes me. I can be persuasive..."

There is another jab from Loki. "No you can't." He looks at Thor. "What force is there that can stop Laufeyson save thine own strong right arm? What is Loki without Thor? It is darkness without light, shadow without substance... Wouldst thou condemn Midgard to live in shadowed darkness, brother?"

There is a nod. – Of course there is a nod. Doom chooses his allies well, and the persuasive skills of the Trickster are unparalleled. – The baby-brother's troubled face clears. "I deceive then, solely for the greater good?"

"It would be an act of protection for Midgard." Loki smiles. "Let us say that you will remain here with Victor today. You will make communication with All-Father. I for my part, will go into the city. I will..." He gestures vaguely. "I will feed homeless people to orphans, is that not what you suggested, Victor?"

It is close enough. Loki leaves on his _missions of mercy_. Doom readies the Interdimensional Communicator.

"All-Father!" Thor's plaintive baby-face is turned upward, but there is nothing for him to look at. "...All-Father?" He turns to Doom. "Am I speaking to him? Is he there? I cannot tell, for I see him not."

"He is there." Doom's is the best Interdimensional Communicator on Earth. It is better than anything the accursed Richards has, certainly, better than the best Stark Enterprises can boast. "Speak to him, you oaf."

Thor speaks. "All-Father..."

Eventually, All-Father answers. "My son? Is that Thor? My son, I can barely hear you."

"You _can_ hear him, you should be grateful." - Pointless, to speak to Odin, when he is standing so far from the Communicator. - "Interdimensional communication is not an old technology."

"My son... Thor, why do you come to me?" Odin says. "And in so strange a manner?"

"I come on behalf of my brother Loki. He has asked that I intercede with you."

"Loki is re..." ...Re-something... Refreshing? "He must abide by my..." ...Something.

"Loki has changed, Father. Honestly, he has!" – Those shifty eyes. The way the idiot keeps looking up and to the right: There is nothing like an honest man, to make a hash of lying. – "I uh... I er, _know_ he's changed, for I've seen... With my own ...um, with mine own eyes I have seen..."

"Your whats, Thor? He has done _what_ to your eyes? If Loki has blinded you I'll... By..." ...By Somebody's Beard... Odin would not swear by himself, would he? Can anyone be that egotistical?

"Father, Loki is _helping_ people. E'en now he is abroad in this mortal city: He aids the widows, and brings unto the orphans sweet succor."

"Thor," the infuriated voice from the other dimension grumbles, "you are breaking up. In sooth, I can scarce hear you. Loki has finally come to the assistance of the mortals of Midgard you say? Are you sure this is true? I care not what he is allowing the orphans to suck if so."

Thor swallows. His face twists as if he is in Doom's face-twisting machine. "It ...it is so, All-Father. I, Thor, declare it. Am I a liar?"

The upright Thor is, and he is a horrible liar. Never has there been one more incompetent. If he has failed to bring this off, Doom thinks, there will be an end to his babyfood ration.

"A ...what was that?" The garbled voice of Odin. "A lion what, my son? Well if Loki has been..." ...Something-something... "And he has..." ...Something... "...as well... He has taken good care of you in your infirmity, certainly. I have decided to..." On the counter where he has placed it, the Communicator gives a loud, painful crackle.

"To what?" Doom looks at the smoke curling from the Communicator. "Cursed goddamn piece of junk!"

Logic gives him a suspicion of the All-Father's meaning however, and his eyes confirm it a moment later, when he can spare time from repairing the Communicator, to look back toward his guest.

He turns to see Thor, a man now, and standing with his discarded diaper around one ankle. His beloved hammer, he cradles in one arm, there being currently no belt around his waist from which to attach it.

"Friend Victor, many thanks for the generous offer of your formula" The lunkish Thor gives him a huge, naked hug. "It appears I will have no need for it after all."

Thor: Master of the obvious.

A moment later he starts, and grabs Doom's shoulders in order to avoid falling on his bare Asgardian buttocks, as a dark-clothed figure appears by their side. "_Brother_..."

"Loki!" Thor cries with delight. "What joy! I see Father has restored your powers!"

"Yes." Loki, for his part, smiles. "And now I can finish the task of killing you."


	14. The Laboratory, and a Genius Alone

"Why not?" Triumphant, the expression on Loki's lean face, confused, the one on his hapless brother's. He curls close to him, with a wicked-looking blade in a hand that was previously empty. "Why would you have me refrain, Victor?" One moment he is at Thor's back, the next, by his side, with the knife raised. "How does it check, how impede your plans?"

Doom steps between the brothers. He puts both hands on Loki's shoulders and stands in the way of the blade. It is after all, an excellent way to test the relative strengths of extra-dimensional steel and adamantium armor.

"Step aside and you value your own life, mortal." Loki's voice is husky. "I sent the Destroyer. Think you I will hesitate for a moment to kill both you and he?"

"I faced down Mephisto. If you think I am frightened of you, you are wrong." Doom grabs Loki's wrist. There is a struggle. Loki is strong, but the nuclear-powered armor Doom wears is a match ...almost. Doom's hand moves slowly, but only very slowly, downward, along with the knife aimed at Thor's shoulder. "Stop being stupid, Loki. Do you think I would stand in your way for one minute if I thought you really could kill this loud-mouthed waste of oxygen? You won't because you cannot. Because he is your brother, and you love him."

Flat denial from the Trickster: "I don't."

At the same time, from the other one: "Does he?" Thor's blue eyes melt. "Are ...Are you sure, Friend Victor?" -

_Friend_: Proof of his idiocy that he should call Doom that. –

"Of course. You'd see it yourself if you weren't such a dunderhead." Doom looks at the Trickster. "I don't know what _your_ excuse is."

"And I loved him," Loki says thoughtfully, "would I have tried to kill him so often? – What was it, brother? Three times? Four?"

"Five," Thor says, "counting when you sent the Destroyer. Six if... – Are we counting getting me banished as an attempt?"

"My intent certainly was to kill..."

Talkative nuisances! They will make Doom's head explode with this noise. "You are both equal in strength," he says, "but Loki is the smarter. Quite obviously, if he were going to kill you, he would have done by now. Now both of you shut up. I have plans, that _certain Tricksters_ promised they would assist with."

"In due time," is all the response he gets from Loki. Thor is now hugging him. Loki, for his part, does not seem to be objecting. "What was it you wanted to do?" He waves a vague hand in Doom's direction. "Kill someone, wasn't it?"

"The Fantastic Four."

"Not Benjamin." Now they are sitting together. Loki's fingers are laced, schoolyard-style, with his brother's. "I find him pleasing." - He looks at Thor. "I hunger, brother. Fetch us provisions from the kitchen."

"Or we could go out for shwarma. It is a dish Friend Tony shared with me, wondrous indeed in its tastiness."

_Shwarma_. Good Saint Sarah grant patience! "The other three, then." Doom grits the words. "We will kill the other three. – Or Richards at least."

"Benjamin likes them. _All_ of them." Loki looks at his brother. "No shwarma. Fetch me Pop Tarts."

Certain Tricksters had best be careful, or they will themselves be the ones eliminated. Doom has done harder things. "There are no Pop Tarts," he says. "Furthermore a promise is a promise, whether you think it should be or not."

"Fetch Pop Tarts," Loki tells Thor. "Fetch them from ...wherever one goes to purchase such. No, wait..." He lifts a slim hand in complex configurations, and a brightly-colored box appears on the table.

_One_ box. "Best make more," Doom says. "Remember how much baby food your brother could get through in each feeding?"

A thoughtful nod. Five more boxes appear. "I will kill someone else for you," Loki offers Doom. "Who would you like it to be? That Tony What-Was-His-Name?"

"Stark? No." Doom shakes his head. "What possible benefit could there be in that?"

Condescending tone of the Trickster. "You have grown fond of him." He opens a box of Tarts in Thor's absence and shakes out one of the packets of pastries. "Have a Pop Tart?"

It is the Hot Fudge Sundae kind, which are an abomination. Doom reaches for the cherry ones. Loki swats his hand away. "Those are Thor's favorites."

Pointless even to mention that he could make more of them. He could make infinite numbers. The last thing a household need suffer from, with a spellcaster in residence, is a shortage of Pop Tarts. Doom stands. "I will make some for myself."

"Don't turn yourself into a baby again," Loki's mocking voice follows him from the room. "And don't use any spells with henbane in them," he calls. "I used the last of in the lutefisk. There's some mandrake left, I think. It's in the bottle marked 'newt eyes'."

More fool he; the spell for Pop Tarts calls for foxglove and boiling plutonium. Doom readies both, and traces the outlines of the pentagram, on the laboratory floor. He takes out his mortar and pestle, sets out the bottles he will need on the countertop.

Doom's spell for Pop Tarts is a good one, but somewhat buggy. The Tarts come out Brown Sugar, no matter what flavor he intends, and they _will not_ brown no matter how long they are left in the toaster. What he needs, Doom thinks, is another pair of eyes. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials.

The voice on the other end: "Stark here." It stops, there is a splutter. Then, "what the hell! Doom? Does this mean we're friends?" He sounds pleased.

"Do not be ridiculous. I want to talk to someone about an experiment, and for an engineer, you have a fairish theoretical understanding."

The crackle of a laugh on the other end. "Then you're saying I'm smarter than you?"

Not even in jest. "Say that again and I'll fry you where you stand. The laser cannon is already in position. Come over and finish the experiment with me," Doom says, "and I might permit you to try one of the Pop Tarts."


End file.
